The Silent Cavalier

Never a word of love broke from him. The maiden Ida never knew the shrine she occupied in the heart of the Flemish cavalier.

The days dragged slowly by. The young man could bear no more. He felt that his strength could no longer endure on the same island with Ida. If he stayed near her he would break his vow.

One morning in a little boat he crossed the blue waters to the island of Pico. At the foot of the majestic mountain he loved, he built the little hut which was to be his home. He never returned to the island of Fayal, and as the years went by he was spoken of as the good hermit of Pico. Nobody knew his secret.

When at last the Cavalier Jesus Maria died, a peach tree grew from his tomb,—the emblem of silence. The leaf of this tree has the form of the human tongue. Its fruit has a stone shaped somewhat like the human heart. From this stone there comes a seed which when planted produces a new tree. Thus it is that words which bear fruit spring from the heart. It is silence which teaches one the gift of fruitful words, they say in the Azores.